JULY 6, 1998:
At the very end of the credits, were assured that no animals were
harmed during the making of Dr. Dolittle. They probably made out
like bandits, providing their trainers some cash for doling out
extra treats like banana chips and raisins and peanuts in reward
for moving their paws and wings just so. But what about their
dignity? Can they really be proud of appearing, by and large,
as a bunch of wiseacres in this middling comedy?

Dr. Dolittle is based on the childrens books by Hugh Lofting
and stars Eddie Murphy as the title character who has the ability
to talk to animals. As the story goes, Dolittle began talking
to animals when he was a small boy, but his father (played by
Ossie Davis), concerned about this trait, calls in a priest to
purge his son. Flash forward some 20 years and the exorcism seems
to have held. Not only does Dolittle not talk to animals, he doesnt
seem to like them that much. When his familys away he means to
take care of his daughters missing guinea pig by setting up dozens
of rat traps. But a bump on the head brings his gift back so that
he can talk to dogs and owls and even drunk French monkeys. Word
spreads in the animal kingdom, and soon a horde of beasts in all
shapes and sizes and with all sorts of ailments appear at his
doorstep, wanting to be cured by this doctor who can understand
them. While Dolittle is jazzed by the challenge of treating animals,
he is a people doctor working out a big-money deal with an HMO,
where his new-found ability might be frowned upon.

Murphy knows a thing or two about career decisions, having seen
himself peak in the Eighties and then peter away to nothing via
ego-driven films such as A Vampire in Brooklyn. Murphy made a
small comeback with 1996s The Nutty Professor, a broad farce
that showcases his skills of performing multiple characters and
of going along with the ridiculous. In Dr. Dolittle, Murphy is
a bit more staid, the classic film dad whos too preoccupied with
career and how things should be to really pay attention to his
family. But like The Nutty Professor, Dr. Dolittles humor is
something less than sophisticated. It is, in a word, rectum-centric,
posting no less than 12 bottom-focused jokes  from a rat with
gas to a guinea pig who gets sat on after falling in a toilet.

Eddie Murphy in Dr. Dolittle.

While this may sound raucous, Dr. Dolittle is rather hum-drum.
This may be because the filmmakers  director Betty Thomas and
screenwriters Nat Mauldin and Larry Levin  were too focused on
how a movie should be rather than thinking through its possibilities.
Sure, a dog at a vet moaning, Theres a thermometer in my butt
has its place, but a whole movie of this? The film has its moments
 the dog with the tennis-ball obsessive-compulsive disorder,
for one. But these moments are rare, little flashes to get from
point A to point B so that Dr. Dolittle can become a good father
and learn to live through his conscience.

In the end, the real fun of Dr. Dolittle is trying to guess the
myriad celebrities who provide the voices for the animals.

Out of Sight

Early in the snappy crime flick Out of Sight, federal marshal
Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez) and on-the-lam bank robber Jack Foley
(George Clooney) are spooning in the trunk of a car. Having taken
Karen hostage, Jack places his hand on her thigh and turns the
conversation to Faye Dunaway movies. In one of Dunaways films,
Karen finds the characters relationship too fast, too unreal.
And with that, Out of Sights filmmakers have neatly taken care
of the issue of why exactly Karen and Jack are drawn to each other.
There are no whys, it just is. Case closed.

More of a mystery, perhaps, is what indie king Steven Soderbergh
is doing directing such a mainstream film. Soderbergh practically
single-handedly sparked independent films upswing with his 1989
film sex, lies, and videotape. Since then hes made a movie about
Kafka and one about a 12-year-old boy set during the Depression,
and he taped a Spalding Gray monologue and came out with an indescribable
comedy titled Schizopolis.

Whatever the reason, Soderbergh gives Out of Sight a little street
cred, though movies, like this one, based on Elmore Leonard novels
(Get Shorty, Jackie Brown) have been doing all right on their
own lately. The Soderbergh touch here is his use of freeze-framing
so that that little piece of the character gets stuck in your
head.

Like the other Elmore Leonard works, there are a multitude of
characters  cool bad guys, really bad guys, the schmuck, the
tough-as-nails woman  and a convoluted scheme. In this case,
Foley has broken out of a Florida jail determined not to grow
old there. Armed with information regarding uncut diamonds, he
and former jail-mate Buddy (Ving Rhames) head to Detroit for the
score. Complicating matters is Karen, whos on his trail and on
whom Foleys got a serious crush. Plus, theres the doofus stoner
Glenn (Steve Zahn) who blabbed about the job to the mean ex-con
Snoopy (Don Cheadle), who wants in on the deal.

The heist is secondary to whats building up between Foley and
Karen. Foley (a role that perfectly suits Clooney) is the suave
con, even-tempered and crafty. But the pull of Karen makes him
prone to risky behavior. For her part, Karen is confident, knows
how to fill a skirt and work a shotgun. Yet her attraction to
Foley corrupts her judgment. They have a system working where
Foley walks right into her hands and she lets him go until their
next meeting, and so on.

George Clooney and Ving Rhames in Out of Sight.

At times, this cat-and-mouse game gets a tad monotonous so that
you might find yourself thinking, Just do it already. But when
the time comes, you realize that the payoff wasnt half as interesting
as getting there.

Hav Plenty

Hav Plenty shows were making some progress, at least over outings
such as I Got the Hook-Up and Booty Call. This smart-ass, off-kilter
comedy featuring Chenoa Maxwell, Christopher Scott Cherot, Tammi
Katherine Jones, and Robinne Lee is not nearly as smart-ass or
as off-kilter as it wants to be, but coming on the heels of some
pretty dreadful movies marketed primarily to black audiences,
its a move in the right direction.

Cherot (who also wrote and directed the film) plays sensitive
hunk and struggling writer Lee Plenty, who is comically deterred
from his first-person chronicles when he falls into a weekend
feeding-frenzy of females (two sisters and a houseguest, played
by Maxwell, Jones, and Lee). Thats about all that happens, but
Cherot has a knack for packing a screen with interestingly revealing
close-ups, and his screenplay has given the actors riffs of dialogue
that pay off in a circuitous, Woody Allen sort of way.

The characters are middle-class and well-educated. Plenty is penniless,
but his poverty is treated, rather awkwardly, as joke material.
Indeed, the films most significant fault is that, in its eagerness
to establish the social credentials of its milieu, it scores some
fairly low laughs off homelessness and deprivation.

On the whole, however, Hav Plenty is intelligent fun. A preview
audience was rolling in the aisles, especially whenever Jones,
playing the shortest-tempered of the would-be sirens on the make,
glides into a scene growling snappy one-liners like a young Eartha
Kitt.  Hadley Hury

What's in a Name?
- A full-length review of "Dr. Dolittle" from this week's Weekly Alibi